Jeff Danziger lives in New York City and Vermont. He is a long time cartoonist for The Rutland Herald and is represented by Counterpoint Syndicate. He is a recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons, a novel and a memoir. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.
It only took a jury a day and a half to decide that Donald Trump, former President of the United States, was guilty on all counts. He will wear the convicted felon label on his back forever, no matter what happens in November. A jury of seven men and five women voted guilty on all 34 counts against him. He will be sentenced July 11. The penalty includes prison time. He likely won’t go, and in the unlikely event that he does, Never Trump conservative lawyer George Conway told me the Constitution would likely be read to require that any state holding him open the cell door if he is elected in November.
But the verdict is another historic landmark in the long list of awful firsts that the MAGA cult leader has inflicted on our country since he rode down the golden elevator in the summer of 2015, enthralling first the media and then a swath of America.
The first of those horrors is the separation of millions of Americans from faith in the law and process of democracy. In the hour after the verdict, on Xitter, on Fox, on rightwing platforms and channels, MAGAs were blind with rage, spitting accusations. It’s a measure of the success of this one man’s assault on American institutions - “fake news"!” “Deep State!” “Rigged against me!” - that untold millions will refuse to accept the fairness of the trial. His people are so unplugged from our commonweal that they are willing to believe the Manhattan DA works for a Hungarian billionaire whose name the rabid right made synonymous with their own invisible donor-monster the Koch family. They are willing to believe that a sitting judge who spends his days in a cold, smelly courtroom at 100 Centre Street, and the men and women of the jury who did their civic duty in the same room and listened to all the evidence, were just pawns of Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Utter lunacy. Sadly, we’re used to it.
One of the rabble outside the courtroom was caught on camera threatening to go inside the courtroom and trash the place. AR 15 memes flooded the platforms. The sophisticates on social media flung profanity, the Overton window of civil political discourse long ago smashed by their Dear Leader.
“Bullshit!” Donny Jr. tweeted. “This Trump show trial is Bullsh!t,” wrote the soigné former Nixon aide, Monica Crowley.
Brother Eric, who squirmed in the courtroom through Stormy Daniels’ description of his father’s seduction technique, fumed at the outrage that a man could become a felon for just “a 130k NDA”!
Trained lawyer and TV personality Megyn Kelly, personally and obscenely trashed by Trump for asking him hard questions during a 2016 debate "(“she’s got blood coming out of her wherever!”) whined to her three million followers that “The country is disgraced” (yes, the rest of us noticed that, but back in November 2016).
Like so many Trumpers, Kelly also issued an implied warning, “They will rue the day they unleashed this lawfare to corrupt a presidential election.”
Rue the day. We’ll get you back. You’ll regret it. Threats, promises of violence, pictures of automatic weapons, bloodlust vengeance. All of it projected from their own Dear Leader and back out onto regular Americans just trying to make sense of it all.
Many MAGAs are now using the banana word. David Sacks, a grotesquely pro-Trump Silicon Valley billionaire, wrote, “There is now only one issue in this election: whether the American people will stand for the USA becoming a banana republic.”
The charitable view here is that Sacks is mainlining K with Elon and failed to notice that America went full banana republic on a summer night in 2016 when Gen. Michael Flynn led thousands of Republican delegates at the nominating convention in Cleveland in a chant of “Lock Her Up.” That Gen. Flynn ultimately got convicted himself (alas, not locked up) only proves the point, especially as he roams free today, another Trump pardonee like Steve Bannon, despoiling the political landscape and spewing conspiracy theories to low-information Q-Anon zombies.
Flynn’s rant and the crowd’s chant were unprecedented in American politics back then. It was shocking to witness the beginning of the idea of using the law for vengeance against one’s political opponents. In office, Trump tried to get his DOJ to manifest the authoritarian dream. But the “adults in the room” still clung to the mores of another era, and resisted, or quit.
The next administration will be vetted for people who won’t have those reservations. There may be none of them left.
Let’s be clear: the 91 criminal indictments against Trump are not “politically motivated.” Dozens of his minions in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia in the fake elector and January 6 conspiracy schemes have been turning like pancakes, or going bankrupt fighting a losing fight. He is recorded bragging about purloined classified national secrets.
Trump only still skates, he only still walks free right now because, contrary to the persecuted image he wants to project of “fighting The Man,” like the angry little guys who think he speaks for them, he is, in fact, The Man.
The New York judge and prosecutors bent over backwards allowing Defendant Trump to behave in ways that would have had any other accused individual locked up pre trial. Trump walks free with money in the bank even though he has already been convicted in a massive civil fraud trial, and of sexual abuse and forcible touching and then lying about it, in another civil case. Prosecutors have reams of evidence against him in the three criminal cases in two other states, cases that only thanks to the delay machinations of his lawyers and the horrifying ineptitude and bias of one of the judges, will not be decided before November 5.
Judging from the outpouring of anger at the conviction, his felonious status will not move his true fans. As historian Ruth Ben Ghiat wrote in her excellent book about modern dictators, from Putin to Xi, to Orban and Trump today and Mussolini and Hitler before them, the criminality of an authoritarian leader can be an essential element in his (always his, by the way, women need not apply) appeal.
“The strongman’s rogue nature also draws people to him. He proclaims law and order rule, yet enables lawlessness. This paradox becomes official policy, as government evolves into a criminal enterprise, Hitler’s Germany being one example and Putin’s Russia another. Millions around the world have found it intoxicating to be able to commit criminal acts with impunity… the thrill of transgression mixed with the comfort of submitting to his power turns the everyday into the exceptional, endowing life with energy, purpose, and drama.”
Trump was right about one thing in his surly first words to the public as a convicted felon, outside the courtroom, with his chagrined loser lawyer standing by (surely Todd Blanche was expecting to hear the L word from his belligerent client in the black SUV in short order).
The real verdict, the convicted defendant said, will be rendered on November 5. Right.
Will a majority of voters cling to the felonious leader’s fantasy that every institution and civil servant in America is utterly corrupted by “the left” and “Soros” and out to get him? Will they show up to vote having lost every iota of faith they ever had in the commonweal, in the possibility that their fellow Americans do the right thing in courtrooms and on juries and in the news media, believing that every non MAGA election worker, Capitol police officer, prosecutor, or New York state judge is engaged in a systematic conspiracy against Donald Trump?
The great question after today is whether the red F now stamped on Trump’s back, not unlike the Nixon tattoo on his fellow convicted felon Roger Stone’s back, will dampen the enthusiasm of any on-the-fence, decent, right-leaning voters still cued in to the possibility of the decency of our institutions after eight years of being persistently propagandized to abandon that faith.
Are there any left? Helloooo! Are you out there? Paying attention?
If so, you don’t have to vote for Biden. We will forgive you if you just stay home on Election Day and leave the man to his ignominious fate.
Reprinted with permission from American Political Freakshow
Nina Burleigh is a a journalist, author, and documentary producer. She is the author of seven books including most recently Virus: Vaccinations, the CDC, and the Hijacking of America's Response to the Pandemic and an adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Donald Trump Jr. interviewed antisemitic white nationalist Douglass Mackey — who was recently convicted of election interference during the 2016 presidential election — on the December 7 episode of his Rumble podcast, Triggered with Donald Trump Jr., and said that Mackey’s suspended “Ricky Vaughn” Twitter account “may be my favorite Twitter account of all time.” Trump Jr. also suggested that he may have been in contact with Mackey in 2016.
During the 2016 presidential election campaign, Mackey had a Twitter account under the name “Ricky Vaughn.” HuffPost revealed his real name in 2018 and reported that the account was known for spreading “anti-Semitism and white nationalism,” such as using the antisemitic “echo” and tweeting that Jews had “control of the media” and were broadcasting “antiwhite messaging” in the mid-1900s. HuffPost also reported that Mackey had appeared on “numerous white supremacist podcasts.” Mackey has also reportedly spoken of his support for creating all-white communities and said he shuns interracial marriages “to maintain our unique culture and racial heritage,” and he has promoted Islamaphobic and anti-migrant content.
In October, Mackey was sentenced to seven months in prison for “spreading falsehoods via Twitter … in an effort to suppress Democratic turnout in the 2016 presidential election,” specifically by falsely posting that it was possible to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton by texting or posting on social media. (Trump Jr. indicated on his podcast that Mackey is appealing the decision.)
During the December 7 interview, Trump Jr. described Mackey as an “original MAGA meme lord” and misleadingly claimed that Mackey’s prosecution and conviction was “literally over a meme from 2016” (a claim other right-wing media figures have also made; in reality, the Department of Justice said that thousands of people tried to vote by texting to the number he distributed). While introducing Mackey, Trump Jr. also said that “we’ve probably gone back and forth on Twitter back in the old days and DMs.”
DONALD TRUMP JR. (HOST): And with that, guys, joining us now is Doug Mackey. Again, if you guys were in the meme wars, like, early adapters like me back in 2015 and ’16, you’ll know him as Ricky Vaughn. But Doug, for the people watching — and it’s great to have you. You know, I know — we’ve probably gone back and forth on Twitter back in the old days and DMs, and I’m sure we were put on lists way back then. But for the people watching, can you explain what happened here? I mean, you literally ran a Twitter account named Ricky Vaughn. And you got charged for posting a meme. What’s going on?
Later in the interview, Trump Jr. told Mackey that his Ricky Vaughn account was “awesome” and “may be my favorite Twitter account of all time” and “maybe the best of all time.” (Trump Jr. also lauded Mackey on Tim Pool’s show earlier this year.)
DONALD TRUMP JR. (HOST): But, hey, you had an awesome account. It may be my favorite Twitter account of all time. Now I’ll get in trouble for saying that because they’ll say, oh, he said something once that you must disavow. Like, it was hilarious, OK? Like, again, like I said, maybe the best of all time, but how’d you get into the idea of that account? How were you able to grow such a large following that put you on the radar of these people?
Trump Jr. also helped Mackey promote his legal defense fund, asking, “How much funds do you need to get through that next level if in fact you need to take it to the Supreme Court?” An on-screen graphic also told viewers to go to the defense fund’s site to donate. Trump Jr. ended the interview by thanking Mackey for “all of the entertainment over the years.”
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
Donald Trump Jr. said on his streaming program yesterday that he wants Laura Loomer as former President Donald Trump’s White House press secretary and Mike Davis as attorney general. Loomer has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” and “pro-white nationalism,” while Davis has declared that if given power in a future Trump Justice Department he would use it to imprison Trump’s political enemies and support pardons for “every January 6 defendant.”
On the October 9 edition of his Rumble show, Trump Jr. said that he’d “love to see” Loomer “as press secretary just to watch D.C. just explode.” He explained:
DONALD TRUMP JR.: She’s a bulldog, man, I will say that. She gets after it. I’d love to see her as press secretary just to watch D.C. just explode. There’s a couple of people that you could put in positions like that, you know. We talk about, like, you know, Mike Davis as attorney general, one of those guys. You almost have to. Just put them in as interim even just to send that shot across the bow of the swamp, you know? Like — you want to play?
You want to play? And then you can get someone, you know, the guys that wouldn’t get affirmed or otherwise. But let like Mike Davis, you know, Kash Patel be like interim AGs. Put Laura Loomer as press secretary for just a couple of days just to, you know, these losers in the — they’ll figure out exactly how easy their job is, you know, before that, so that’d be pretty funny.
Following his 2016 election, Trump stocked his White House and administration with an array of familiar faces from his television screen, including at least 20 former Fox News employees. As the former president has widened his media diet since leaving office to include even more unhinged sources, it’s not implausible that a future administration would feature denizens from the right-wing fever swamps.
Here’s who Trump Jr. is suggesting be given power under a potential 2024 Trump administration.
Loomer is a conspiracy theorist who recently joined Rumble as an exclusive host — a fitting collaboration since the platform hosts right-wing conspiracy theories and bigoted rhetoric. (Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski hailed Loomer’s addition.)
According to The New York Times, former president Donald Trump wanted to hire Loomer for his current presidential campaign but was talked out of it. Since then, he has repeatedly praised Loomer, and campaign adviser Jason Miller recently appeared on her program, where he called her “the best” and said of Trump: “I know he's very appreciative for everything that you do, Laura.”
(Ironically, one of Loomer’s biggest critics is member of congress and anti-Muslim bigot Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has called Loomer “a documented liar,” among other things)
Loomer is virulently anti-Muslim. She has said that she is “anti-Islam” and a “proud Islamophobe,” stated that she never wants “another Muslim entering this country EVER AGAIN,” and asked, “How many more people need to die before everyone agrees that Islam is cancer & we should never let another Muslim into the civilized world?” Here is a summary of some — but certainly not all — of her anti-Muslim rants.
Loomer also said during a podcast: “Someone asked me ‘Are you pro-white nationalism?’ Yes. I’m pro-white nationalism.”
Davis served in the Justice Department during the Bush administration, oversaw judicial nominations as a staffer to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, and played lead roles in the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He founded the Article III Project, which he described to The New York Times in 2019 as an effort to “take off the gloves, put on the brass knuckles and fight back” on judicial issues. That article characterized Davis as “a take-no-prisoners conservative eager to challenge the left with hardball tactics.”
In practice, Davis has spent the last several years offering unhinged and authoritarian diatribes, conspiracy theories, and pro-Trump sycophancy on his social media feed and across a constellation of right-wing media outlets.
He has excused Trump’s withholding of government documents by claiming presidents can effectively “wave a magic wand” and declassify them; urged House Republicans to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and President Joe Biden; said that Biden is “the perfect guy to put in the White House if you want a puppet to control”; described Trump’s various criminal indictments as “a political hit by Biden and Garland to take out Trump for the 2024 presidential election” that will “have a very chilling effect on democracy” and the district attorneys and the special counsel investigating Trump as “partisan hitmen sent by Biden to take out Trump”; and argued that the New York civil suit against Trump was “only constitutional in Third World Marxist hellholes” and was essentially “legal terrorism."
Davis has put forward a chillingly specific platform for what he would do if appointed attorney general, which he describes as his “reign of terror.” He claims to have “five lists, ready to go and they're growing,” which consist of political enemies he would fire, indict, deport, or imprison in the “DC gulag” or Guantanamo Bay, as well as political supporters who would be pardoned, including “every January 6th defendant.”
When Media Matters’ Jason Campbell reported on those remarks in September, Davis replied that he was “excited to put” Campbell “and all the leftwing freaks at” Media Matters on the lists for indictment, deportation, and imprisonment at the “DC gulag” or Gitmo. When Media Matters’ Matt Gertz noted that “Trumpists are becoming unusually explicit in acknowledging they want to regain power so they can engineer political prosecutions of people they disagree with,” Davis responded, “Fact Check: True,” adding that Gertz had been added to the indictment and gulag/Gitmo lists.
Trump Jr. also mentioned Kash Patel as a potential attorney general. Patel previously worked as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller during the Trump administration. He is now a right-wing pundit who, along with other senior Trump officials, has spoken at events featuring Hitler-promoting antisemites. He’s also embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
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